The Old House On the Croton 1749

someone

first coming to this

house packed his

wife and baby

scotch roses and yellow

poppies from her

father's house

in crates with some

shovels, lace

the baby crying through

the tall grass

through the mud

mud on Joanna's slippers

mud and blue jays

silk hung on a branch to dry

and the gold threaded

tapestry,

its blue velvet

seeming so strange

in the house that day